In many restaurants, particularly quick service restaurants, various food products are typically not served to the customer open on a plate immediately after being cooked. Rather, the food products are placed into individual containers so that each container can be handled, stored, reheated or packaged in a bag, easily and conveniently. After cooking but before being served to the customer, the food products may be held in a holding area for a short period of time. This is especially true when a quick service restaurant prepares a number of food products in anticipation of the traditional busy periods of lunch and dinner.
During this holding period before being served, certain food products can undergo changes in temperature, appearance, texture, and flavor. For example, the edges of hamburgers may get relatively cold and hard, or french fries may soak up vegetable oil which remains on their surfaces after cooking. These changes in appearance tend to decrease customer satisfaction with these food products. The decreased temperature and quality of appearance, texture and flavor makes these food products less appetizing.
It is also known that certain food products, such as pizza, give off latent heat stored in the pizza due to cooking and heating along with moisture or water vapor. At least a portion of this latent heat and moisture can condense on and be reabsorbed by the pizza itself, making the pizza soggy and tough to chew. For example, the water vapor can condense on the surfaces of the container or tray and drip down towards the bottom of the container, where the bottom of the pizza absorbs the condensed water vapor. If air circulation adjacent to and around the pizza is poor, the water reabsorption by the pizza increases-since the latent heat and resultant water vapor is further prevented from circulating away from the pizza. Although a relatively small amount of water vapor escapes from the pizza and condenses, or is prevented from circulating away from the pizza, this amount may be enough to make the pizza become undesirable by being soggy and tough thereby decreasing customer satisfaction. Also, if air from inside the container is not allowed to be exchanged with the air from outside the container, condensation of the water vapor inside the container is more likely.
Food containers that attempt to address the problem of air circulation in the container to help prevent the food product contained therein from absorbing water and becoming soggy have been described in several United States patents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,127,189 to Shumrak et al describes a food container for hamburgers which contains four shamrock-shaped pedestals on its base upon which the hamburger is carried. The pedestals provide for slightly improved air circulation about the hamburger.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,636 to Hoffman, a container is described for a hot pizza pie or slice. The container is provided with a plurality of elongated ribs upon which the pizza is carried. The increased air circulation in the passages defined by and between the elongated ribs, the bottom of the container and the pizza attempts to prevent the pizza from becoming soggy.
Other patents describe ways to exchange air between the interior of the container and the outside air to allow the water vapor to escape. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,335,846 describes a container for pizza having a series of venting channels permitting such an exchange. This container has a recessed tray-like base shaped to receive a whole pizza pie and a cover which forms a lid over the base. The cover is provided with one or more openings so that vapors from the interior of the container may be vented to the atmosphere.
Although these techniques may have been useful in helping prevent certain fold products from becoming soggy, an improved container for pizza is desired.
Further, an improved pizza container is needed to prevent the pizza from getting damaged and the consumer's fingers from getting messy when the consumer attempts to lift the pizza out of the container. Specifically, the containers for pizza described above do not allow the consumer to get his or her fingers entirely underneath the pizza for lifting it.